The Life of My Grandmother and the Lessons She Taught Our Family

My grandmother, Kamrun Nessa, frequently stayed in the living room because it was where everyone in the household would spend the most time. Although my grandmother was a very quiet and peaceful individual, she enjoyed listening to all the babbling in the background while she would be reading or doing something uninvolved in the conversations. My grandmother had such a powerful presence that everyone knew she was in the room without even looking at her. My family would be informal while being respectful towards her, simultaneously. The living room also had enough space to give her freedom to indulge in many other hobbies.

In photographs, my grandmother looks majestically beautiful. In one of them, although she sits on a mere stool, she looks like a queen sitting on her throne. She has the posture of a graceful ballet dancer with her head standing high. From other people’s perspective, my grandmother’s eyes were almond shaped jewels that always looked proud and dignified. These liquid brown eyes were one of her most noticeable features which held such intelligence and serenity that it was impossible for anyone to look at her directly in her eyes, especially when she was disappointed or had the slightest bit of anger. My mother would tell me that she and her sisters would always voluntarily look down whenever they got told off by my grandmother. They just couldn’t get themselves to look at their own mother.

She had the type of face that would never age and the undeniable symmetry of her features was perhaps what held everyone so captivated. Her face was curvaceous, yet her cheeks were sharp and long. Her cheekbones sat low, making her bone structure flat. My grandmother rarely smiled. When she was asked about why she didn’t, she would always say that she smiled on the inside. I was told that whenever she did, there wasn’t the need to show her teeth. It was always emphasized by her perky rose lips, shaped like a heart. My grandmother rarely spoke since she was more of a listener than a speaker but when she did, her usual voice had a soothing and calming tone.

One of the most frequent praises that my grandmother still gets is her wisdom. When she was alive, most family members would go up to her for any sort of advice and all their problems would evaporate, when following it. Even now, family members always remember her advice and never fail to forget it. Kamrun always said that if everyone was wise then it would be easier to learn to distinguish the positive from the negative, as well as discarding the latter. This would make you avoid the dark places that evil could lead you to. Kamrun valued education. She believed that every individual should have the liberty to have an education and use it to excel. If this were the case for everyone, society would be able to make such ground-breaking advancements and minimize the mysteries of the world. She also believed that intelligence brings true strength and power to a person, rather than physical strength. After all, she did have a passion for teaching when she was younger. She would also voluntarily tutor many of the unfortunate people without wanting anything in return, except for making a difference to someone’s academic life. Kamrun also taught in many schools, in addition to private tuition.

One of my grandmother’s main priorities was cleanliness and organization. She was a perfectionist and wanted everything to be perfect. She would collect ornaments and souvenirs, which were polished with wisdom and age, from many places. My grandmother was very fussy about the presentation of the house and would spend ages, trying to find suitable furniture for specific rooms to make the house perfectly matched. She even told others to tidy up immediately, whenever they would make a mess and would continue to remind them if they hadn’t done so. These items would stand in their shelves with glory and pride. Whenever guests would visit, they would be so impressed and mesmerized by the radiating, decorative beauty and its mellow, comforting aroma emanating from every single furniture and ornament. Because of this, my grandmother’s house had a strongly built reputation that never abated, significantly. Friends of friends and family would never hesitate to visit the house over and over again.

Not only did Kamrun concentrate on the presentation of the house, but also on her clothes and daughters’ clothes. My grandmother believed that there was always the need for beauty in every single aspect of a person, such as personality, appearance, their home and possessions and even in clothing. She believed that it was respectful to yourself and others to look presentable. Not disheveled and not excessively dressed but in between. My grandmother would find time in her day to sew her daughters’ clothes. She would look at clothes in magazines for inspiration and would sew original designs. My mother mentioned to me that many people in her school and college would be mesmerized and even jealous of her outfits, all thanks to her mother.
My grandmother also had a large appetite for desserts. Her stomach would do ecstatic cartwheels as she gaped at desserts. Not only did cakes and chocolates satisfy her sweet tooth, but also food that has natural sugars, which are high in fructose, such as fruit and berries.

After Kamrun Nessa’s parents passed away when she was at a young age, Kamrun ensured that she would work her hardest in order to keep herself and her family in good state and shape. She was able to earn a scholarship to a prestigious boarding school, even when she was experiencing bereavement. She used to tell my mother that boarding school was such a pain. Kamrun despised waking up five in the morning and the strict dress code. My grandmother had overall a difficult life. She looked after her family with her own two hands at such a young age. When she got older, she started mandatory civil war training. As she lived in India, Bengal (modern-day Bangladesh ), many Bengali people demanded their own independence and wanted their own territory. Therefore, many Bengali citizens had to train in case of an outbreak of civil war. Kamrun had serious first aid training and nurse training and was taught how to shelter yourself. She informed family members about this knowledge since they didn’t have access to it due to living in the countryside. When she was a mother, war occurred but luckily she and her family didn’t encounter any serious dangers, since Kamrun was very meticulous about safety and welfare because she would frequently move with her family to safer places.

When my mother was younger, as she would pass the living room, all that was heard was a rustling of pages in a book. This was my grandmother. Whenever she read an old and heavy book, the tarnished pages would almost become delicate snowflakes with the touch of her hand. A snowflake and a page in a book have many qualities in common; weightless, unique, fragile, gentle and intricate. Something that differentiated the two was that a snowflake was ephemeral. Her eyes would not leave the words on the pages. They were filled with engrossment as she poured herself into the pages. They glistened non-stop as each second went by. She looked so graceful that when her head looked down, towards the book, a light would cast shadows on her eyelashes, which created long streaks like threads of silk. Her eyelashes fluttered up and down, mimicking a butterfly. No one would be able to separate my grandmother and the book she was reading, not even for a split second.

However, for my grandmother, painting came before reading. When she would paint, my relatives would say that her hand moved over the canvas, almost like her mind was directing her hand. It moved instinctively to the right spot, building a new picture, ones that have never been seen before and ones that looked exactly like how it was in real life. She enjoyed painting sunsets the most. My favourite of her sunsets was the one in which the sun poured its golden rays down upon the clouds of billowing smoke, turning them bright and fiery red. My grandmother enjoyed the fact that she was creating and would love her works as she would love her children.

In addition, my grandmother loved to indulge in many hobbies and was competent in a myriad of creative fields and loved to constantly experiment with each of them in a distinct manner. She wasn’t afraid to try something new and would get invested hobby after hobby. They were predominantly painting and reading but also embroidery, sewing, gardening and even raising hens and commercial butterfly breeding. Kamrun actually domesticated many hens and didn’t want to use them for food but for pets. Everyone in the family became emotionally attached to them. My mother sometimes found them annoying since they would sometimes be loud and troublesome, especially in early mornings, but she loved them anyway. Unfortunately, each hen, one by one, started to disappear. Some died naturally but some were gone, plain out of sight. My grandmother strongly believed that people stole them for poultry, which simply must have been the case in that situation. This was very disheartening for the household and it took time getting used to being without them.

My mother also remembered when my grandmother first got caterpillars, which transformed into butterflies and then stored them in a reusable, 11 inched, mesh habitat which ensured butterfly viewing. My grandmother, as well as the household, enjoyed seeing the stunning miracle of metamorphosis from caterpillar to chrysalis to a butterfly up close. My mother remembered when she and her sisters would crowd around and gape at their mother, releasing them, almost like freeing birds in a cage. The butterflies would beat its wings up and down as it opened and shut those vivid yellow blades. My mother described them as a spectacle. The butterflies were simply the flowers of the atmosphere, looking both transient and delicate. Even the gaily painted wings itself were like falling petals. My mother and her siblings would look at the butterflies, alighting upon flowers and folding wings upward, neatly. There were all kinds of butterflies such as gaily coloured wings, which were yellow as lemon sherbet. Others were as scarlet as strawberries, as well as similar ones but with a dusky sunset orange-like hue with white polka dots huddled around the edges, and finally some with contrasting electric blue wings with ragged edges.

My grandmother has ultimately taught important things that are still reverberating in the family. One is to help the unfortunate and provide support for impecunious individuals. Another is to respect elders. She also valued honesty and always said to speak the truth since it builds your character’s strength and allows you to be a great assistance to yourself and others. Kamrun despised arrogance. To her, arrogance is false confidence, which always masks your insecurities. It is an attitude of superiority manifested in an overbearing manner. Finally, she valued equality and ensures that every person should be treated equally regardless of race, gender, religion or beliefs. She believed to treat another person the way you want to be treated.